The summer’s unrelenting humidity finally relented, and we woke up delightfully chilled on a cool Sunday morning. I headed out early for my morning run. Mr. P and I are both training for the Chicago Marathon in October, but for us, training for a flat road race is a relatively tranquil regime compared to the preparation involved for La 6000 D. We no longer have to separately drive 30-90+ minutes to a suitably steep trail and spend 6+ hours laboring up and down (and up) only to drive home and spend the rest of the weekend in a near-catatonic state of hungry exhaustion. No, instead I merely jogged out the front door, headed to the bike path and ran for 3 hours/18 miles, and it felt like a picnic compared to 7 times up and down Wachusett Mountain, and I was home soon after Little Boy had his breakfast, so we had the entire day for some serious family fun in some seriously nice late-summer weather.
Let’s rent a canoe! we decided, and packed a lunch and drove to the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary in Topsfield, where as Mass Audubon members we can rent a canoe for $7/hour. Experience has taught us that the family canoe experience is most enjoyable when Mr. P sits in the back.
Launching
Right before the above picture was taken, Little Boy fell off his perch when Mr. P pushed the canoe too quickly into the water, but he got right back up and smiled on demand. Little Boy paddled with enthusiasm, if not precision, and Mr. P had to work extra hard to counteract the adorable way that he’d forget to pull his oar out of the water.
The meadows surrounding the river were teeming with flowers, grasses, plants, and other winsome sights, but for some reason I choose to take a picture with dead-looking trees in the background.
Paddling
We stopped a half-mile downstream at Colt Island for a picnic. (That’s prosciutto hanging so cutely out of Little Boy’s mouth.)
Picnic
Back in the canoe, we continued downstream for a while before turning upstream back to the launch. Whew… this counts as cross-training, right? Picnic included, we managed to spend 2 and a half hours in the canoe and it felt like no time at all. After we returned the jackets and oars, we went for a quick hike to tour the rock grotto and visit our favorite tree.
Little Boy wanted to “race” back to the visitor’s center. That’s his new thing: sprinting races. He can’t go for more than a minute, but he’s pretty fast for a little boy. We always let him win. He is convinced that I’m particularly slow (which I am, compared to Mr. P) and he speculated “why Mommy is so slow… maybe you are too little,” he said, before realizing he is littler. “Maybe… maybe you are scared to run fast,” he decided. I was reassured that he didn’t say it’s because I’m a girl.
“Maybe I can’t run fast, but I can run far!” I said. But Little Boy was already off on the next “race” without even telling me it was starting. Hmmm. Maybe it’s because you cheat.
